


Forbidden Spaces

by LunarExo



Series: Johndaveweek 2018 [4]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: M/M, johndaveweek
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-06
Updated: 2018-07-06
Packaged: 2019-06-06 00:33:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,297
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15182801
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunarExo/pseuds/LunarExo
Summary: There was a chain connecting Prospit and Derse. It started in the ground of Prospit, and emerged like a tail behind them, going up for miles to where it ended, buried into the ground of Derse.





	Forbidden Spaces

There was a chain connecting Prospit and Derse. It started in the ground of Prospit, and emerged like a tail behind them, going up for miles to where it ended, buried into the ground of Derse. Between them, the only landmark was a giant padlock, shimmering gold when the sunlight hit it around four pm.

All were forbidden from walking on the chains. They were fragile, and someone breaking what linked the planets together would doom them all. So the reigning empress of Prospit had banned it, and the one before her had banned it, and the one before her, for as long back as history books could remember.

But they didn’t seem quite so fragile to him. 

He was eleven when he’d first walked on the chains, a rebellious young man running away from home so he wouldn’t have to eat his dessert, carrying only his backpack with his most treasured items (his book of magic tricks, a pack of cards, a big soft blanket, and all of his secret stash of potato chips he’d stolen from a school fair when nobody was looking.) Even then he’d known of the so-called ‘fragility’ of the chains, but he was small and young and didn’t really care.

He’d gotten just ten chains up when his Dad had found him, tearfully begging his son to come home. (John obliged, with the promise of less cake in the future.)

After that, the chains became a source of curiosity. They’d been so study under his feet, it went against everything he’d been told. He threw rocks at the chains, surprised when they didn’t dent or make the chains sway. He’d spent hours stacking more rocks onto the chains as well, expecting to see them weighed down by the weight, but even his massive pile changed nothing.

It was weeks before he had the nerve to actually walk on them again, weeks of leaning against their metal base and reading, or of putting steadily heavier things onto them. It was childish rebellion, John told himself, more convinced it was because he was a scrawny kid than because of the small chance of a conspiracy led by the empress. She was kind and beautiful, surely she had her reasons. But again he found himself walking on them, sturdy with each steps, the massive metal unwavering beneath his weight. It was like he weighed nothing as he walked, first slow and then faster, scrambling as high and far from Prospit as he could. 

A year passed and John made little progress. The rainy season kept him home altogether, and school sapped his energy. But school also made him stronger, organized sports raising his stamina while a lucky growth spurt gave him a wider stride. An unlucky summer sent to camp by his Dad dampened his progress further, and then another year of growth and learning, leaving John thirteen years old. He’d almost entirely forgotten about the chain, letting it become nothing but a backdrop in his life, until he walked by its base and saw a child throw a rock at it, gleeful in his senseless aggression. It was… Inspiring, in a stupid sort of way.

It was easy enough to shoo the kid away, yelling out a quick, “hey! I’ll tell your mom and the empress is gonna get you for throwing those rocks!” It was all it took for him to go running with his tail between his legs, dropping rocks the whole way. Certain the way was clear, John stepped onto the base of the chain, and found himself struck with nostalgia as he made his way higher, the metal warm beneath the thin sandals on his feet. He walked until the sun set, and then went home, silently vowing that this time—this time he would reach the midpoint.

He came the next day and walked a little higher. And the next, and the next, and the next. By the fifth day he figured his spry legs would be able to carry him all the way to the padlock, so he brought a picnic lunch with him, intending to settle there, if only for the humour of doing something so mundane on such forbidden ground. 

Beginning his walk at nine thirty, John found himself stepping onto the padlock at noon, panting heavily from the long uphill climb. He thoughtlessly plopped himself down onto the sun warmed metal, nuzzling into it as his heartbeat slowed down. 

He opened his eyes to someone staring at him, mouth just slightly agape.

“Uh…”

Immediately, John bristled, sitting up and hugging his bag to his chest, “who are you and what are you doing here?”

“I could say the same thing to you! Who the fuck said you could come here?”

John gasped, scandalized, “you swore! You’re not supposed to do that, the empress can hear you! And I said I could come here, so,” he stuck his tongue out, blowing a raspberry in the other boy’s direction.

He looked unimpressed, rolling his eyes, “alright, fine, lets pretend for a minute that your dumb empress _can_ hear us, which she can’t, by the way, because that’s fucking stupid, but lets _pretend_. First of all, if she could hear, wouldn’t she hear your dumbass panting all the way up here to this padlock we ain’t supposed to be on? And second of all, I ain’t from Prospit, so whatever your empress is telling you she isn’t telling _me_ , so I can swear all I fucking want.”

“Well, uh… Wait, you’re from Derse?” 

He was met with an exasperated sigh at that, the blonde across from him looking annoyed, “yeah, and you’re from Prospit. Thought that was obvious from my ashy complexion and all that dumb bullshit. This is the only place where I can get some goddamn sun. So do me a favour and don’t fuck it up for me, ‘cause Dersites ain’t supposed to be up here, and from what I’ve heard neither are you. Name’s Dave, by the way.”

“My name’s John,” he relaxed a little, letting his bag slump in his hold, “how do you know all this stuff about Prospit anyway? I’ve never even met anyone from Derse except you! Nobody has. Sometimes I hear rumors that Derse is just an empty husk, and that all the lights that turn on at night are actually swarms of mutant fireflies that ate you all.”

“Man, I wish. Shit ain’t that fun,” Dave leaned in closer, his voice growing to a whisper, “I’ll tell you some secrets if you gimme those chips in your bag. I can hear ‘em crinkling and I’m real interested in it.”

John stared him down for a long moment, before reaching into his bag and tossing the bag over. “Okay, spill.”

\---

The people of Derse and Prospit should never have been separated. There was only one empress. It was all a big test. John didn’t know what to think of all the information Dave had given him—had no way to verify if it was true—but he found himself ruminating as he went home, staring at the chain below him as he went. What did it mean for him—for them all—if this massive forbidden thing separating them wasn’t meant to exist at all? 

Stepping off the last chain, John sighed to himself, turning to look back at the space between him and Derse. Dave’s final words to him resonated in his mind, loud and clear. “Things are going to get a whole hell of a lot worse around here, unless we do something about it.”

The lights on the houses of Derse began to turn on, yellow specks on a purple horizon, and John frowned. What would worse look like, if he didn’t even recognize bad?

**Author's Note:**

> i'd like to keep working on this! we will see


End file.
